


Au Courant

by Tsula



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Danger, Death, F/M, Fluff, Jedi, Kidnapping, Qui-Gon needs love, Romance, Torture, possible future smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 13:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8803228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsula/pseuds/Tsula
Summary: The closer the two of them grew towards the source of the call, the more uneasy Obi-Wan became. It was leading them towards a very large, very imposing looking structure that might have been beautiful were it not for the look of neglect and the dark aura that oozed out of the place like an air of sickness. Something was very wrong with this place and he could feel it seeping in through his skin. He had to force his hand to stay at his side rather than leaping to the hilt of his light saber. It felt like they were walking right into the mouth of some terrible monster.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Been hording this for a very very very long time and this is kinda my fall back for making sure I post something today. I can't focus at all on anything and I just said fk it. xD
> 
> So, yay, new fic I'd been hoping to wait on till I finished something current, but oh well.

The sky above was hazy gray, much the same color as storm clouds and yet there didn’t seem to be a cloud for miles. It made little sense, but when your head feels three times too heavy for your body sense doesn’t have much of a foothold. Especially not when it felt like you’d taken one hell of a beating. Quite frankly the sky could have been green and you wouldn’t have given much of a damn right then. The current state of your body was much more pressing. You couldn’t move a single finger on either hand, in fact you could hardly muster up the energy to do something as simple as blink. Every time it was a struggle just to force your eyes back open.

How you wound up this way probably should have taken greater precedence, but something else had nagged its way to the forefront of your concerns. 

You were moving and by no will of your own. 

Though the sky was gray like a stormy morning there were indicators that it was clear and also that you were being moved. It felt like you were more or less lying flat, so perhaps you were on something. A vehicle of some sort maybe. It hurt too much to lift your head and check though. Instead you kept on gazing skyward through heavy eyes. 

One sort of indicator that marked your unwilling journey were several moons stretched across the sky. Some of the smaller ones were clustered closer together and the larger ones—seemingly much too large to be natural—were spread off on their own. From what you could glean without the ability to move your head, there were at least eight moons in the sky. 

Eight. The number would have made your head spin if it were clear enough for such things. For the moment the terrifying explanation for such a phenomenon was repressed in favor of issues that were closer at hand than distant moons in an alien sky. 

Something was moving you to some unknown destination and you could neither ask nor check just what it was or where it was going. A jolt of fear unclouded your mind long enough for a few other facts to become clear, but not long enough for you to succumb to the rapidly building panic trying to flood your system. The first of these realizations was that your hands were bound with something cold that was likely a type of metal and someone had been kind enough to bind them in front so that you weren’t lying on them. The second realization was of a strange tug that seemed to come from inside your body rather than outside of it. It was as if some invisible force was trying to lead you in another direction and you being unable to follow it only made the sensation stronger. 

However, you could not hold on to these thoughts for very long—the clarity slipped away so quickly and so efficiently, it was as though it had never been there at all. 

In its place was a haze of numbness that was somehow worse than the pain had been. It was almost terrifying and might have been had you the strength left to be afraid. Instead it was uncomfortable. You found yourself losing feelings in parts of your body as if they were fading out of existence; and your mind had no capacity for coping or rationalizing this because parts of it were vanishing as well. A fog clouded your mind as vital parts of it shut down: things like rationality, coherency, sight… 

Sounds faded in and out like music and static pouring out of a pair of dying speakers. Louder, softer, clearer, more distorted. Hardly any of it made sense at all. There was some sort of hissing that almost sounded like words, but not any words you’d ever heard before. Though there also seemed to be a man’s voice and a few of his words were familiar. 

“—don’t care—” lots of ‘static’ and distortion. “—was she there—” The sound was starting to fade out entirely as the hissing words and the man’s voice dimmed. The speakers were dying. “—hide her—” His voice was almost clear for one brief moment before it was gone. “—the Jedi have arrived.” 

And then utter silence joined the darkness as your mind shut down entirely.

  
**Chapter One**  
_The Calling_  


Obi-Wan had gotten used to much of his master’s peculiarities, even though several of them grated at his nerves. Such as his master’s tendency to leave him in the dark much of the time. If it was vitally necessary for him to be informed, Master Qui-Gon would almost certainly do so. However, young boys are not often satisfied with such basic information, especially not while exploring foreign planets on the fringes of the galaxy.

Before this assignment Obi-Wan had never even heard of Gyurn, let alone imagined the sort of people living on it. Most looked human, though there was something vaguely off about them, as though they didn’t quite fit in their own skin. Though there were also a few other notable races such as the Hutt who brought back less than pleasant memories, particularly of his first unofficial mission with master Qui-Gon: who had been quite averse to even being the boy’s master at the time. 

There were a lot of questions Obi-Wan would have liked answered, however Qui-Gon seemed adamantly tight lipped about the whole ordeal. He’d only stated that they were to look for someone out of the ordinary, though he had not said exactly what that entailed or given any other description. Frankly, Obi-Wan wondered if his master knew anymore about what was going on than he did. He’d have been hard pressed to discern anything though as Qui-Gon almost always looked the picture of calmness and control. Even if his master was as confused and irritated as he was, he’d never be able to tell. 

That was just one of those irritating, but ultimately admirable traits his master possessed and that Obi-Wan knew he himself needed to work at. A Jedi is supposed to be in command of the situation and at all times calm so as not to allow negative feelings such as doubt, anger, and fear cloud their judgment. Such things do not often come easy, especially adrift in a strange land with no idea of what to look for that would be considered ‘unusual’. The things the vendors were selling fit that description, though he knew very well that was not what his master had meant. 

So he just had to imitate Qui-Gon’s calm demeanor and keep his eyes open. He could only hope that the force would be a better guide in their search for this unknown oddity. 

*** 

The feeling in your extremities came back slowly, one limb at a time, while your mental faculties seemed to come and go like they were being shorted out by something. A flash of a dark room, a whisper of voices, the scent of something entirely unrecognizable but strangely appetizing—bits and pieces of information from your senses that did little good in explaining anything. 

You could feel something soft beneath your head and something cold against your wrists. 

_Shackles._

The brief flicker of a memory went along with the title—the gray sky, the many moons, and more to the point: the metal around your wrists. So many questions bubbled inside your brain and you couldn’t seem to grab any single one to hold onto and pursue. 

_Where am I? Why can’t I move? Was that real? How could there be eight moons? Who was speaking before? What had they meant? Why does everything hurt? What is that smell?_

More and more questions surfaced with each one, branching off uncontrollably until there just wasn’t enough room in your head for them all. Your eyes fluttered uselessly when you tried to open them, to see the room in earnest. It felt like your body simply had no strength left anywhere, even as the numbness receded and the aches came back as a dull, persistent pang across every inch of you. If someone up and said you’d been run over by a freight train that would not have been hard to believe given the present state of things. It might even explain way what you’d seen before as some strange drug addled hallucination from a hospital bed. That idea was more satisfying than the alternatives—many of which you couldn’t even begin to pursue even as a passing thought. It seemed so much easier to pass off the strangeness as comatose dreams and even to picture your mangled body hooked up to all sorts of tubes and machines. Easier, though not at all pleasant—you could almost smell the mix of cleaning solutions, linen, and urine. 

Though you couldn’t quite make yourself buy into it. The pain was much too vivid to be all in your head and no hospital shackles their patients. Even if you tried to reason that they do tie people down on occasion, it still didn’t fit with the metal against your skin or the fact that your hands where bound together in your lap rather than at your sides to hold you down. 

No, there was just too much wrong with this situation to pass it off as anything rational. This moment was real and if this was real, so was the one before it—the one with the eight moons. Your mind kept circling back to that phrase and it got louder with each pass. 

Eight moons. 

_Eight._

There wasn’t enough rationality in the world to reconcile waking up to that, let alone enough in your hazy, confused, and ultimately terrified mind. None of this made any sense at all and the present state of your body only made all of that worse. It was bad enough to picture the scene a thousand times in your head, but to not be able to move or open your eyes—to not be able to compare the vision with reality—made you feel crazy and anxious. You wanted to move, to see what was going on; you wanted something to make sense and some part of your body to freaking move! 

What you got was another flutter and a brief image of a window with bars. 

*** 

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure where the feeling came from, but there was a sense of tension in the air that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. An anxious tug in the pit of his stomach as if his whole body wanted to be somewhere else entirely. He frowned at the feeling, confused because he knew it wasn’t his own. There was no danger present and no reason for him to want to be anywhere else, but it was still there regardless. 

At first he couldn’t quite put his finger on the tingle of familiarity he felt, but one glance at his master and suddenly he remembered all too clearly. He remembered the feeling of his master calling out to him through the force, when he could feel that he was needed at Qui-Gon’s side. This wasn’t quite the same, but it did remind him of it. 

Someone or something was calling, perhaps not to him or anyone at all, but this was certainly unusual enough to get his attention. And by the way Qui-Gon ever so subtly adjusted his heading—veering towards the tug as if he’d been intending to head that way all along—he’d say his master felt it as well. 

This didn’t tell them who or what they were looking for, but it certainly told them where to go. 

*** 

The passage of time was hard to discern when you could neither move nor see. It all just melded into one long stretch of misery and confusion. Being left only to ones thoughts isn’t exactly pleasant for long periods of time, even under normal circumstances. Yet it is infinitely worse under the ones you were being subjected to. 

The only things you were sure of at all were these three: you were chained, you were not on Earth, and your entire body ached beyond compare. Aside from that it was all wild speculation and all consuming irritation. Fear was something that should have reigned supreme since you could neither see nor move, but it had apparently drowned in the raging riptide of ire that swept it out into the great wide ocean of confusion. The fact that you couldn’t open your eyes or even twitch your fingers was cause for frustration more than alarm. It had become fairly apparent that you were alone in whatever room you’d been placed in and that was at least one less thing to worry over for the time being. No doubt someone would have to show up eventually—or something, as it were—but you really didn’t have room for any other concerns. 

For the moment you were trying to decide if the scent in the room reminded you of. At first it had seemed floral and sweet like honeysuckles, but the longer you lay there subjected to it, the more the scent started to resemble something more like fruit. The sweet was undercut by something stronger as though the entire room smelt like wine—but not wine. It was confusing enough to distract from most of your other thoughts. 

Though a sudden sensation briefly banished it in favor of another flicker of memory, this time not of the moons but of what you had felt before it had all gone dark. That pull was back again and this time you had more capacity for recognizing it. The closest explanation you could come up with for how it felt was a strong urge tugging in one direction. An external force reaching inside your body to will you somewhere and to not obey was… strange. Not quite painful or entirely uncomfortable, but odd and not really all that pleasant. Your body wanted to obey this call, this tug, but you had no way of doing so yet again. You could only lay there further irritated by your unprecedented inability to move. 

It was like your body had been paralyzed while your mind remained free to make a fuss. 

*** 

The closer the two of them grew towards the source of the call, the more uneasy Obi-Wan became. It was leading them towards a very large, very imposing looking structure that might have been beautiful were it not for the look of neglect and the dark aura that oozed out of the place like an air of sickness. Something was very wrong with this place and he could feel it seeping in through his skin. He had to force his hand to stay at his side rather than leaping to the hilt of his light saber. It felt like they were walking right into the mouth of some terrible monster. There was no doubt his master felt this unease as well, though of course he never showed any of it. His stride was unhindered and his face was ever a mask of utter calm. The perfect ease with which he walked into such a terrible place was both comforting and awe-inspiring. 

Obi-Wan couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever be able to exude such a mastery of calmness. 

As the two Jedi entered through the towering black doors of the building they could feel the group waiting ahead before they ever saw them. There were several guards hidden around the very large, very dark room—mostly out of sight behind the massive pillars holding the torches—but the most insidious of the intentions in the room seemed to come from the man directly ahead. The man descending the stairs had a darkness about him that even a child, force trained or otherwise, would be able to pick up on. His lips were pulled into a pleasant smile that conflicted greatly with his cold, hateful eyes. 

Obi-Wan could feel just how unwelcome a sight he and his master were to this man. They were an obstruction, a danger, a menace. These thoughts and feelings were so clear he could have plucked them right out of the air. It was as if the man were intentionally broadcasting his desire for them to leave. Though that would have been a very stupid thing to do, given how feeling this only made them more sure of this dark place being exactly where they were meant to go. The call was so insistent inside the building it felt like it was bouncing off the walls. 

“Master Jedi,” The wicked man’s voice was all propriety even though his intentions were anything but. “Whatever do we owe such a privilege?” 

Obi-Wan nearly slipped and glanced up when the call suddenly grew louder and more urgent. Whatever was calling out was in danger and that left them very little time to figure out a way passed their welcoming committee. 

*** 

The scent changed very suddenly—that was your warning. No more flowers and fruit, but instead the sharp scent of something repugnant that wasn’t quite damp or moldy, but fell somewhere in between. The closest things your mind could relate to it were old garbage and sewage, though neither seemed to actually fit. With the scent came sounds: some familiar, others quite foreign. 

The creek of hinges—a door. Something strange like the clink of metal on metal. A rough sound like the scraping of leather, but different in a way you couldn’t pin down. Someone breathing… 

That sound was what really sent your heart racing. Someone was in the room, someone you couldn’t see but that could almost certainly see you. Their approach was something you could feel as if your other senses had already increased so dramatically from your lack of sight that you no longer even needed your eyes. Somehow you could see the outline of them in your mind as they drew nearer. They were large but very light on their feet. You could hear a hiss every time they exhaled, as well as the clink of metal, and that scraping of not-leather with every step. 

Every fiber of your being wanted your body to move and your eyes to open. It wanted you to see what loomed closer with slow, deliberate steps—it screamed for you to open your eyes. 

Whoever was in the room spoke suddenly in a raspy, hissing voice that sounded angry and terrifying. You couldn’t understand a word they said, or even if they were speaking to you, but it was horrifying enough to make running the utmost priority. 

You willed your body to move, to listen to your pleading. To hell with the pain, you’d take it a thousand fold if only to be able to get the hell out of that room and away from whatever crept closer still. 

_Move!_

That word was a command inside your head, a decree from your mind for the rest of your body to respond. You repeated it over and over again, screaming it to yourself in the hopes of some kind of response. 

More hissed words from the hulking figure that you could feel just inches from your feet and suddenly you could flex your fingers. It wasn’t much, but it was something. 

_Move! Move! Move!_

You continued to shout in your mind while clinching your hands into fists against your thighs. Something wasn’t going to be enough to do a damn thing at this rate. 

A cold hand curled around your ankle, sending a jolt through your system that went beyond fear and hit something much deeper. The reaction was better than your mantra even at its loudest. It was as if your entire body sudden snapped back into place—as if it had been just slightly out of reach all that time. 

Your eyes shot open and in the span of seconds you assessed the danger lurking at your feet. He was large, very much so in fact, but he sure as hell wasn’t human. The hissing was explained by his reptilian features, the metal clink by his armor, and the strange leather scraping by his long tail dragging on the floor. 

He looked shocked as your eyes met and even more so when your leg jerked out of his grip, though this did not last long. The surge of strength and the drive to survive amped up your senses. You rolled off the bed hardly hindered by the cuffs on your wrists and slipped under the creature’s arm as he made a wild grab. 

The door he’d come through was still open and suddenly you were out it, though you could hardly remember running for it. Everything blurred at the edges and pulsed as if the world were beating at the same frantic rhythm of your heart. You could heard him giving chase and even feel him so clearly you knew exactly how far behind he was. He was fast for his size, but you were faster and soon your lead more than doubled as you bolted down the dark hallway. 

At first you could hardly consider where you were going as you kept track of your pursuer and tried to stay ahead of him. But as your body took turns before you even were consciously aware of them you started to realize what was driving you wasn’t all instinct. It was that tug, that pull once again. The feeling had been growing stronger all the time and suddenly it was as if whatever it was trying to lead you towards was almost close enough to touch. It made you faster than ever—faster than should have been possible it seemed. 

The lizard-man continued to fall behind and the pull continued to grow stronger. You almost couldn’t breathe so strong was the sensation. It seemed to resonate throughout your entire being, no longer content in the pit of your stomach. 

Whatever was leading you, whatever it was this feeling was pulling you towards, it was close, very very close. 

*** 

The dark aura was nearly suffocating as the Jedi let the ‘leader’—Dracus, he’d called himself—take them on a tour of what was apparently once the royal palace. It had long since become something else though as the royal family died off generations ago, according to their guide. He claimed it was presently in the possession of the council that ruled over the city and the outlying regions, but there seemed to be a ring of deceit in everything he said. 

He also seemed to try and veer away from the original location of the call, furthering Obi-Wan’s belief that these people were deliberate obstacles. However, he obviously had no way of knowing that whoever was calling was coming closer. As Dracus droned on about the architecture the sensation grew stronger with every step. It felt like any moment they might slam right into it, though the hall ahead was clear. 

Qui-Gon stopped quite suddenly and drew his lightsaber, startling Dracus into a stuttering halt. It took a fraction of a second for Obi-Wan to feel what his master felt and draw out his own lightsaber as something slid quickly into the hallway just ahead. 

Dracus tried to make a dive towards the figure before either of the Jedi got a look, but he was knocked off balance as the person barreled right passed him. 

The call was now more like a scream that filled every cell in his body and resounded off the walls. 

*** 

You rounded the corner so fast you almost lost your footing. The tug was stronger than ever as you came around the bend and found yourself faced with people in your path. They weren’t people you had seen before, there was nothing uncertain about that. The first man was insignificant though and his attempted block was hardly noted. That tug, that odd pull that resonated throughout your being, was leading towards the other two—a very tall man with long hair brown hair and a beard accompanied by a tall teenage boy. 

As the first man staggered, left off balanced by his failed lunge, you practically threw yourself at the other man. Your body was thrumming at the closeness. His hand was against your back as he angled himself to be between you and the first man—the reptile seemed to have gotten himself a little lost for the moment at least. 

Though the clink of metal and the heavy footsteps signaled the approach of more danger. Neither the long-haired man nor the boy seemed worried by this. They were both very calm, especially compared to the frantic pace of your heart and the expression of frightened rage on the other man’s face. The calmness seemed to seep right into your skin, it made it easier to breathe and think. The impulses, the pull, dropped off in their presence as if some unknown condition had been met. 

Sadly that meant the pain had a chance to strike again and it all but knocked your legs clean out. If the man hadn’t had a hold on you, the floor would have been your next stop. He lifted you up easily in one arm, holding aloft a weapon in his other hand that you hadn’t noticed before. It was bright green and hummed almost like an electric current. The shape was like a sword, but the blade was made of colored light rather than metal. 

The boy was holding one was well and the other man eyed both weapons fearfully. His hand lingered near his hip as if he planned to pull out a blade of his own, but the appendage was shaking so badly he wouldn’t have been able to hold it. Whoever these two heroes were they certainly scared the villain well enough. Though backup was coming and you doubted it was for the good guys given the way his eyes kept darting towards the sound. He had the look of someone who just had to hold his ground a little longer… 

As if sharing that thought your saviors decided to push through, though their timing was astonishing. The moment they knocked the dark haired man aside the lizard-man caught up and they went tumbling over in a pile of flailing limbs. It was damn near hilarious, though you had precious little energy left and sadly none to spare on laughing at their expense. 

The hall ahead was blissfully clear, though it was apparent the way back had become quite busy. All of those stomping feet from your pursuers echoed off the empty walls and made it sound like there was an army at your heels. The thought had you curling into the chest of your rescuer as he and the boy darted swiftly through the darkness. 

The first sign of actual light came from a large window that had apparently been broken at one point. For a brief moment you could see what was going to happen, even before your heroes started to head straight for it. You saw them leaping through the busted window and landing on an adjacent, but much shorter building. 

This confusing picture became all the more shocking when that turned out to be exactly what happened. The building was even just how you’d imagined it—clay roof and all. This made no sense, but there was hardly any room in your head for exploring it and no time to ask as the two men took off running again. You felt more than saw that the pursuit was doubling back, unwilling to make such a perilous jump themselves. At first you rationalized this as being mere logic in the present situation, but that was before you became sure that you were feeling their location and this shocked the hell out of you. 

It was one thing to sense a tug, to be pulled inexplicably in some direction. Yet it was an entirely different sort of surrealism to realize that you were having precognitive visions and sensing the location of people. You buried your face into the chest of the man still carrying you and he held you tighter in response. Perhaps out of kindness, but for some reason you had the strangest sensation that he might know what you were feeling. Rather than try to dispute or rationalize this however, you pushed it aside. 

There was already enough craziness floating around in your head as it was. Not to mention worse things that made it even harder to think. 

The pain in your body ebbed and gushed like the tide. You were alternating between moments of extreme clarity that bordered on clairvoyance and long, terrible bouts of agony that took you out of the world and back into agonizing darkness. It made the passing scenery very disturbing and confusing. The rooftops faded out as the pain returned and with the clarity came a strange new place with a sky full of rain clouds and a street full of sad looking people. 

Your savior held you tighter during the pain, when it rendered you blind with its agonizing hold. It was as if he could feel your pain and the fear it caused somehow. At least it felt that way in hindsight during your bouts of clarity. 

The next clear moment came as your saviors rushed out a massive gate and you felt more than saw the group of people chasing you down. As you made it through, the boy ran for the enormous chains holding the gate open. He cut them swiftly with his light sword and dove through the opening before the gate came crashing down behind him, trapping the pursuit on the other side. 

Your vision started to fade after this, along with your other senses. 

“Master—” The boy’s voice garbled as the world twisted around you. “—ing we can do?” 

Your eyes fluttered against the swirl of colors and encroaching darkness. The clarity was slipping away, but slower this time. It didn’t fade straight to black. 

The man holding you responded and his voice, though only slightly clearer than the boy’s, made you feel more at ease. His tone was calm and controlled. “—needs a healer.” 

Your eyes rolled back as the darkness finally won out.


End file.
